Dominic, based on this previous answer below what voice actor would you recognise if you heard them in an everyday setting (if any)? Radio show hosts not included
When I was a child I played CMI to dead. (I'm sure I've beated it atleast 10 times)
At that time I couldn't understand it, as I was 6 or 7 and english isn't my primary language.
But looking back on it now, (and replaying CMI at the moment) I think your voice and the ingame dialog might have been my primary teacher in the language, as I had the basics of the language down before touching a single english book.
So for that I thank you.
Now for my question: If you could have one (1) old Lucasarts adventure revived which one would it be? (apart from MI and Sam and Max)
ohh god you love The Mills Brothers??? Ahaaa and I'm going to be part in a play and sing a song of 'em. That's going to be ridiculous, but that's another topic.
About the ringtone: I got the "monkey in my pocket" (German VO of course, saying "Ich hab nen Affen in der Tasche und der stiehlt mir all mein Geld, das ist ne neue Masche, grade wie es ihm gefäääääällt") as ringtone when I get an SMS. You can give this German version a try. Just open the slippery zip and listen to the MP3 inside. And now let's come to the questions: What do you think of that voice? Would you even try to speak German (and other languages as well), record it and compare it with the localized VO only once just to see how good the other voices fit to your actual voice?
I got one! A fair amount of time ago I stumbled across the April Fools joke for MI5 and thought it was completely brilliant. Besides the demo tape and these, do you have any other interesting clips of your talent floating around on the internet?
Also, if I was an independent animator who makes flash cartoons and I wanted a bit of star power behind a short that I made, what would it take to get a certain question-answering voice actor to do a couple of lines for me?
How do you approach a character doing an impersonation like Guybrush's Barry White picking-up-wenches voice? Do you attempt to do the impression within character or do you do the impression from a natural state and allow the qualities your voice shares with the character fill the gaps?
I've always found character impressions done in character to be fascinating
Welcome back Dominic I cant properly express how excited i am about all this recent MI greatness, all the interaction with the fans has been fantastic
When I was a child I played CMI to dead. (I'm sure I've beated it atleast 10 times)
At that time I couldn't understand it, as I was 6 or 7 and english isn't my primary language.
But looking back on it now, (and replaying CMI at the moment) I think your voice and the ingame dialog might have been my primary teacher in the language, as I had the basics of the language down before touching a single english book.
So for that I thank you.
Now for my question: If you could have one (1) old Lucasarts adventure revived which one would it be? (apart from MI and Sam and Max)
Same here! I learned English because of/thanks to MI2, FoA and DoTT (and other point-n-clickers)!
With all this talk going around that lechuck should be a lot terrifying in this series .. do you agree that lechuck just got stupid in parts 3 and 4.. especially 4?
With all this talk going around that lechuck should be a lot terrifying in this series .. do you agree that lechuck just got stupid in parts 3 and 4.. especially 4?
What do you mean? LeChuck was really cool in MI3...the whole concept. Not the actual gameplay. I found him really scary in MI2. Dammit, when I had to get ingredients for the voodoo doll and he just entered the room...man, that was FREAKY. I jumped a lot of times at this.
In MI3 he's funnier, in MI4 he's...ummm... totally useless if you ask me. Useless but I wouldn't call his part stupid. Just... not very implicated in the whole process of being evil... muahaha-ha-ha?
I wish I experienced it like that... I was just a stupid kid, and I got my hands on a walkthrough... And I can't believe I actually used it for most of the game!
Fft. Ruined forever .
i can renember my first playthroug of MI2...it was a looong time ago, in the days bevor SCUMMVM^^...i got it with the "Lucasarts 10 adventure Box", witch i only bought because of indy4, i already owned it but i lost the codes so i had to rebuy it.
I played it on normal, but i forgot to install it befor i started playing.....well that way i couldnt save and so i had it runing on my pc for 2 or 3 strait Days. But i stuck at the very end when i tried to find the stuff for the LeChuck vodoo dool. i dont know why but i did quit the game at this point and it took my a while(months?) 'til i replayed it to finaly see the ending credits
I think MI2 was the first MI i realy played, after that i played SoMI. I didnt play SoMI first because of the graphics...it was the VGA floppy version.
Alright i think enough pages have passed where I can ask another question without feeling pushy... what other forms of Geeky fun do you partake it, Comics, Dungeons and Dragons, Larping, Cosplay, Web Comics, Etc?
Just great to have you back on board! twopointfive questions, i hope noones has asked them, i read thru the majority of the ones you've answered and i dont think anyone has;
1. During the time you were with the LUcasArts guys doing the remastered version SURELY they were talking about the prospects of doing Lechucks Revenge when and if the remastered version did well enough to warrant it? (yes i know they say its a labour of love but im guessing the first one would have to sell a few copies at least)
2. When i've published a book im writing one day and i then write the scripts for the tv show version, will you play a character in it for me (which i'll write especially for you!) for lots of pay, food and fame?
2.5. If you ever come to Australia would you autograph my AMIGA500 please?
Anybody else cringe in Sam & Max Hit the Road:
The emphasis on "AM" always ruins that joke for me. Which is a shame, because if emphasized right ("I don't even know where I am, Sam!"), it'd be a great joke.
So be watching out for that, Dominic
EXACTLY what I’m talking about. And certainly a situation where neither the director nor the actor knew what the lead-in was for that line.
I mean...that has to be a good thing, right? Should we start getting our hopes up for ToMI Season 2?
I’m not. But only because I did that after EMI and had my soul crushed for ten years. I’d rather pretend each is the last and be shocked and elated when another one pops up.
Do you think that games developer should bring voice actors into the games making process at an earlier stage, helping them to evolve the character they are voicing, help develop how they think a character would react, physically for example? You know talk to the animators and stuff like that?
From what I know and from the impression that I've gotten from your earlier answers it seems that developers just want one take actors, you might get a read in and a vague idea about what is going on in the scene but if you had a more detailed understanding of what was going on wouldn't that help the voice actors to give a better performance? Wouldn't it lead to a more cohesive product?
Sure it would! But like anything else, there’s a budget and you have to be smart about how you use it. Plus, that kind of thing – while it would be an incredible luxury -- shouldn’t be necessary for really good voice actors. VO is already a huge chunk of the cost of producing an adventure game. If you know a handful of great voice actors who can come in and lay down 4-5 characters each that are 95% perfect, it’s tough to justify spending three times as much to get them to 98%. Of course it helps to see some drawings, a little action, get some background... this is all important stuff and we usually get it to some degree. But getting heavily involved in production just isn’t something that’s done. Unless you’re talking about something like Force Unleashed (I think), but that’s a freaky weird exception.
Thank you so much for answering my questions! I'm going to celebrate by preparing Spaghetti Carbonara for my family! ...hmmm, do you like Spaghetti Carbonara?
Love it. Unless it’s made with cream, in which case it isn’t carbonara. (Pet peeve.)
My question is: which Guybrush look fits the most with your idea of how he SHOULD look? Personally, I'm partial to the MI2 Guybrush just because he's so rad with the fancy blue coat and newly-grown beard, but the CMI Guybrush is also incredibly iconic and fits with your voice perfectly. Your thoughts?
I can honestly say that I haven’t found any of the first four Guybrush designs jarring or “wrong” in any way. Or if I did, I quickly forgot about it. And when I talk about the first four games, I don’t mean to imply that I’ll feel differently about either of the current projects. I just like to wait to mess around with the final product for a while before making any judgments. Seems only fair.
I have another question for ya. One Train leave from Duluth at 9 am going on avg of 70 miles per hour. A second train leaves from Hartford at 9 pm going an average of 80 miles per hour. What's your favorite book?
Close call between Lolita and The Neverending Story.
(And assuming the trains roughly follow the route laid out by Google Maps driving directions and leave on the same day, they’ll crash at approximately 12:55 AM EST the next morning, near Nittany, Pennsylvania. And if you answered 12:27, you forgot that Duluth is Central time while Hartford is Eastern time, meaning that the Duluth train only gets an 11 hour head start rather than 12. That’s right. I solve for X, baby. Bam.)
Since Jake got you into this messthread, have you been ribbing Jake about how many more questions you have been answering than he has, and how slack (compared to you) he has been in the Q&A thread? Have you thought of creating a 'Questions for Jake' thread?
I actually haven’t been reading the other threads, but only because I’m buried in tending to mine! And I hadn’t considered such sweet revenge against Jake, but I am now.
No, no... I'm talking about the Swamps of Time where Guybrush is talking to Guybrush from the past or future. I assume since you've said that it's pretty much just a list of lines, that you probably didn't realize... except for the fact that you were saying "Psst, hey, Guybrush, over here!"
Ah, of course. No, Darragh (the voice director on CMI and EMI) explained to me exactly what was going on. That'd be a shocking omission if he didn't. And yes, I imagine it would have been rather confusing.
I just wondered if you've ever interacted with the other voice actors during the recording of a Monkey Island game (including this one). Or do you just record separately?
I’ve actually spent very, very little time working with the other actors. From a budgetary standpoint, it just isn’t practical to put everybody in the same room for something so monstrous as an interactive script. But there were a few opportunities, including some of the cutscenes for EMI and the Pirate Song in CMI.
The reason I'm wondering is that I noticed the dialogue seemed pretty "flowing" and intertwined when I played through EFMI recently!
(Btw.. I think EFMI is a huge underrated game after playing through it a second time. You agree?)
With the caveat that it’s completely impossible for me to be objective about these things, I loved EMI. I understand and appreciate why some people were disappointed, but I just enjoyed it too damn much to feel the same way.
Well...since you brought it up, what is the strangest thing you've done in a VO session...or at least, what's one (or two) examples of something stranger than loogie-ing?
So what is the strangest, weirdest and most silliest thing you ever had to do for a voice (over) job?
Ah, there they are. Gosh, plenty of candidates.
Deaths can get pretty wacky sometimes. The following exchange – or something very close to it – actually occurred... and it was much less ridiculous and more practical than you think:
“Okay, now we need a scream.”
“What kind of scream?”
“A death scream.”
“What’s killing me?”
“A sword.”
“A regular sword?”
“Actually, kind of a laser sword.”
“Oh, okay. Slicing or stabbing?”
“Slicing.”
“And where am I being sliced?”
“Across the midsection.”
“Are we talking, like, sliced in half, or just very badly damaged?”
“Just very badly damaged.”
“Okay, so not instantaneous, but a relatively quick death.”
“Yeah, no more than a few seconds.”
“And is this, like, searing pain laser sword, or wounds instantly cauterized actually hurts a lot less than it looks like it does laser sword?”
“I’ll leave that up to you.”
“...okay, I’m ready.”
Then there was the time Darragh asked me to do some random cantina alien sounds for one of the Star Wars games (don’t recall which). He sent me home with a cassette tape full of reference material taken from the movies. When I came back the next morning, I told him that I thought most of them weren’t even produced by living creatures, much less humans, to say nothing of the sound processes involved. So I ended up spending about half an hour laying down a bunch of sounds that were as far from human as possible, but could still plausibly pass for an alien language.
And, of course, there was the shirtless session. My shirt was too loud. Not the color. That was quite subdued, actually. But it was made with a fabric that made too much noise when I moved (the microphones are very sensitive). So I took it off.
There are plenty of others that aren’t springing to mind, but suffice it to say that hocking a loogie on mic barely makes the quarterfinals.
Dominic, based on this previous answer below what voice actor would you recognise if you heard them in an everyday setting (if any)?
Well, I can’t really say because I’d have to know what they sound like in real life to know whether they’re recognizable or not. I suspect I’d be able to pick out Billy West, for example, since so many of his characters have such a distinctive tone, but I don’t actually have any idea whether he sounds like that or not.
About the ringtone: I got the "monkey in my pocket" (German VO of course, saying "Ich hab nen Affen in der Tasche und der stiehlt mir all mein Geld, das ist ne neue Masche, grade wie es ihm gefäääääällt") as ringtone when I get an SMS. You can give this German version a try. Just open the slippery zip and listen to the MP3 inside. And now let's come to the questions: What do you think of that voice? Would you even try to speak German (and other languages as well), record it and compare it with the localized VO only once just to see how good the other voices fit to your actual voice?
Nice try, buddy. I unzip your file and next thing I know you’re swiping Monkey Island scripts off my laptop!
(Just kidding. But I do make it policy never to open zip files I find online.)
I got one! A fair amount of time ago I stumbled across the April Fools joke for MI5 and thought it was completely brilliant. Besides the demo tape and these, do you have any other interesting clips of your talent floating around on the internet?
Not that I’m aware of. Of course, I was shocked to discover that episode of Chicago Hope on Hulu last week, so there’s probably a lot more than I’m aware of. (Though that was less an interesting clip of my talent and more an interesting clip of my stubble.)
Also, if I was an independent animator who makes flash cartoons and I wanted a bit of star power behind a short that I made, what would it take to get a certain question-answering voice actor to do a couple of lines for me?
What voice actors do you most admire? Who inspired you the most? And what would you say are the most iconic voices out there?
Me personally, I lean towards you, Mark Hamill as the Joker and Kevin Conroy as Batman, icon-style.
On the commercial end, Tom Ciappa for being such a cool cat and shockingly talented. David Pasquesi for spending half his time in the booth and half his time in Italy and being shockingly talented. And Demi Moore (yes, Demi Moore), for being one of the very, very few celebrities who actually belong in VO. Seriously. Put Ghost on the screen and I want to claw my eyes out. But I could listen to her VO demo all day.
On the character end, Mel Blanc for being the prototype. Seth MacFarlane for creating and delivering his own vehicle. Tom Kane for being so unassumingly awesome. Tom Kenny for looking like Buddy Holly (he does!). And the Brothers Chaps for doing it their way, somehow running a strictly PG website that’s still hysterical to even the most cynical adults, and for proving that it’s not about the voices – it’s about the characters.
How do you approach a character doing an impersonation like Guybrush's Barry White picking-up-wenches voice? Do you attempt to do the impression within character or do you do the impression from a natural state and allow the qualities your voice shares with the character fill the gaps?
I think the Guybrush as Barry White is the only time I’ve done that, so it’s not exactly a large sample, but I think the former. I could probably get away with the latter while doing Guybrush, but that wouldn’t fly most of the time.
With all this talk going around that lechuck should be a lot terrifying in this series .. do you agree that lechuck just got stupid in parts 3 and 4.. especially 4?
Nah. I always read him as somewhat comical in the first two, so three wasn’t much of a shift for me. And he was almost a minor character in 4, so it’s kind of hard to compare.
Alright i think enough pages have passed where I can ask another question without feeling pushy... what other forms of Geeky fun do you partake it, Comics, Dungeons and Dragons, Larping, Cosplay, Web Comics, Etc?
Hmmm... well, I always wanted to play D&D when I was a kid, but could never find anybody to play with. So I mostly just rolled characters and read modules. I had my comic book phases, but never got hardcore about it. Ditto Magic: The Gathering. In the days before Guitar Hero, I brought back a Japanese PS2 and a bunch of guitars from Japan for the sole purpose of playing Guitar Freaks. At the time, that was a really obscure, geeky subset of gaming culture, but now all of the cool kids play fake guitar too. These days, I’m a big food geek.
Just a random question - what's your favorite TV show? There's something simple.
Can I name a few? Futurama, Simpsons, South Park, King of the Hill, Top Chef, Iron Chef (mostly Japan, but USA’ll do)... sense any themes here? Arrested Development, The Wire, Flight of the Conchords. Veronica Mars hooked me. And whoever decided to cancel Deadwood three seasons into a four season story arc needs to be fed to Wu's pigs.
1. During the time you were with the LUcasArts guys doing the remastered version SURELY they were talking about the prospects of doing Lechucks Revenge when and if the remastered version did well enough to warrant it? (yes i know they say its a labour of love but im guessing the first one would have to sell a few copies at least)
Let’s just say that the developers making adventure games aren’t charities. Whatever their plans, there’s no number of copies sold – either high or low – that couldn’t change them.
2. When i've published a book im writing one day and i then write the scripts for the tv show version, will you play a character in it for me (which i'll write especially for you!) for lots of pay, food and fame?
If Monkey Island is like the only game you've really voiced, how do you like buy stuff? Do you have another job or do you live in your car?
Well, it’s not the only one! I think I have a couple dozen credits to my name. But the gist of your question is right on. I was actually making a meager living on VO in L.A. for a while, but we’re talking pretty meager, and even then I was in one of the upper percentiles. For most people, it’s a side gig. The people who can actually make a decent living at it are incredibly few and far between. Even more so in the celebrity VO era. I help out with the family business (decorative tin packaging – exciting stuff). And I’m married to a sugar mama with a medical degree, so there’s that. And speaking of my sugar mama, she has answers!
Did your wife marry you because you were the voice of Guybrush? I know I'd marry the voice actor of April from 'Dreamfall: The Longest Journey' if the chance was there
No. Actually, I haven’t played the games yet. He lured me into marriage with delicious foods. And because he’s the type of guy who doesn’t think to question the fact that there’s been a kazoo in our bathroom for two months. He’s fun.
I’d heard about it before, through friends, but since I hadn’t played the games, it didn’t mean that much to me. I thought it was neat that he had his own fans. But it was more important to me that he was the voice of Dominic Armato.
On the subject of recent AWESOME revival news a la ToMI: Any thoughts on the new season of Futurama that was just confirmed? Could this just be some kind of super revival-of-cancalled/dead-series year we're having?
Edit: I am so damn psychic, I said that without seeing the mentions of Futurama and Billy West in your last post.
Just a random question - what's your favorite TV show? There's something simple.
Can I name a few? Futurama, Simpsons, South Park, King of the Hill, Top Chef, Iron Chef (mostly Japan, but USA’ll do)... sense any themes here? Arrested Development, The Wire, Flight of the Conchords. Veronica Mars hooked me.
Oh god, I love Arrested Development and Veronica Mars, too. Those shows are so unappreciated and killed-before-their-time. At least AD got a satisfying ending and is now getting a movie.
...Hey, how great would a Telltale episodic VM game be? Actually, I wouldn't mind seeing them take on a TV show license, just because that kind of standalone stories with a strong arc fits the episodic game format perfectly, for obvious reasons. The recent mention of Doctor Who somewhere got me excited.
Heya Dom,
Thanks for agreeing to answer our inane questions.
I'm not sure if this should be directed in this thread or the Q&A with the team but seeing as I've so far managed to read your Q&A....I figured here.
I noticed on the lucasarts.com video when you're in the recording studio that you were wearing a recent Threadless t-shirt. This would be the perfect timing to suggest to threadless that they run one of the their feature design competitions. Something like 'Threadless loves...Tales of Monkey Island'; stirring up a bit more promotion for its launch and causing those geeky monkey island fans/graphic designers to cream themselves...
And now let's come to the questions: What do you think of that voice? Would you even try to speak German (and other languages as well), record it and compare it with the localized VO only once just to see how good the other voices fit to your actual voice?
You are serving a large group of your wife's coworkers. In your haste you get distracted by the group and come back to the kitchen to find the roux is about to burn, the meat is almost charcoal, and the mushrooms are waterlogged. The only alternative is Taco Bell's "deal of the day". What do you do? Do you serve the potentially nauseating Salisbury Steak or do you try to pass of the fast food as your own?
Also, if I was an independent animator who makes flash cartoons and I wanted a bit of star power behind a short that I made, what would it take to get a certain question-answering voice actor to do a couple of lines for me?
Anyways, I was also wondering what games you're playing currently... specifically on the PC platform. If they're multiplayer, what screen name do you use? I'd love to play a game with you and then brag about how I lost/won a game against Dominic Armato.
...Also also, I found what appears to be your FaceBook. I demand you add me. That's not really a question, but do it anyway. I need the nerd cred. Well, I don't need it... :rolleyes:
And now let's come to the questions: What do you think of that voice? Would you even try to speak German (and other languages as well), record it and compare it with the localized VO only once just to see how good the other voices fit to your actual voice?
Ahaha... that's pretty good. Still, it's not quite the same Guybrush that I know and love. Bill is way off, though.
I just want to say that you are the best!!
I also researched that you played in a few Nickelodeon series like Rocket Power and Aaah!!! Real Monster which is pretty cool.
My little brother, Mihai (14 years old), loves the Monkey Island series. After I explained to him that you are the one that lends a voice to Guybrush, he was very excited when he found out that I am talking to you through this forum. He wishes to know if you will come to Romania someday. Also, he likes Guybrush very much.
He wants to know, if it's not too much for you to answer his questions too, what do you like most about Guybrush? And how many times have you finished each Monkey Island game?
He thanks you very very much for this oportunity of asking you this and meeting you (virtually speaking). I helped him write this because he doesn't know how to spell words in english, even if he speaks the language better than I do.
Thank you. (Sorry if I'm beginning to bug you, and no, the carbonara doesn't contain cream...anymore.... from now on..well, you understand)
And a dude with a name sounding (or looking at least...i doubt it actually sounds like it looks) like a pirate noise! "Darragh, Jim lad!"
I suspect I’d be able to pick out Billy West, for example, since so many of his characters have such a distinctive tone, but I don’t actually have any idea whether he sounds like that or not.
He sounds exactly like an older version of Fry. The voice was based on his 23-year-old self! And, as a side note, the commentaries on the futurama dvds are well worth watching. That goes for everyone here too
Oh no! It just occured to me i cant boost sales by buying more than two copies of SMI because its download only! (one for PC one for Xbox) I'll need to push it extra hard on my friends!
And, as a side note, the commentaries on the futurama dvds are well worth watching.
That they are. Which reminds me, I've just heard that Futurama is coming back - Comedy Central have picked up the show for 26 episodes (hopefully more in the future!) to air sometime in 2010.
Comments
Is there a prize for being the tenth caller person to ask that question?
You'll have to speak to the creator
http://maya-plisetskaya.deviantart.com/
And maybe ask her to make you some 'Day of the Tentacle' shoes too
Thanks for answering my questions btw, I'll cherish them forever *prints it out and hangs it up on a wall*
When I was a child I played CMI to dead. (I'm sure I've beated it atleast 10 times)
At that time I couldn't understand it, as I was 6 or 7 and english isn't my primary language.
But looking back on it now, (and replaying CMI at the moment) I think your voice and the ingame dialog might have been my primary teacher in the language, as I had the basics of the language down before touching a single english book.
So for that I thank you.
Now for my question: If you could have one (1) old Lucasarts adventure revived which one would it be? (apart from MI and Sam and Max)
About the ringtone: I got the "monkey in my pocket" (German VO of course, saying "Ich hab nen Affen in der Tasche und der stiehlt mir all mein Geld, das ist ne neue Masche, grade wie es ihm gefäääääällt") as ringtone when I get an SMS. You can give this German version a try. Just open the slippery zip and listen to the MP3 inside. And now let's come to the questions: What do you think of that voice? Would you even try to speak German (and other languages as well), record it and compare it with the localized VO only once just to see how good the other voices fit to your actual voice?
Thanks in advance.
If you were in my place, what would you ask the voice of Guybrush Threepwood?
"The Voice of Guybrush Threepwood"... That sounds awesome
Oh, and what's your favourite island from the series? I just love Blood Island...
Also, if I was an independent animator who makes flash cartoons and I wanted a bit of star power behind a short that I made, what would it take to get a certain question-answering voice actor to do a couple of lines for me?
Also, how much wood would LeChuck chuck if he could chuck and would chuck some amount of wood?
What voice actors do you most admire? Who inspired you the most? And what would you say are the most iconic voices out there?
Me personally, I lean towards you, Mark Hamill as the Joker and Kevin Conroy as Batman, icon-style.
How do you approach a character doing an impersonation like Guybrush's Barry White picking-up-wenches voice? Do you attempt to do the impression within character or do you do the impression from a natural state and allow the qualities your voice shares with the character fill the gaps?
I've always found character impressions done in character to be fascinating
Welcome back Dominic
Thank you for all your awesome work!!!
Same here! I learned English because of/thanks to MI2, FoA and DoTT (and other point-n-clickers)!
q: What is your favourite version of LeChuck?
What do you mean? LeChuck was really cool in MI3...the whole concept. Not the actual gameplay. I found him really scary in MI2. Dammit, when I had to get ingredients for the voodoo doll and he just entered the room...man, that was FREAKY. I jumped a lot of times at this.
In MI3 he's funnier, in MI4 he's...ummm... totally useless if you ask me. Useless but I wouldn't call his part stupid. Just... not very implicated in the whole process of being evil... muahaha-ha-ha?
Fft. Ruined forever
I played it on normal, but i forgot to install it befor i started playing.....well that way i couldnt save and so i had it runing on my pc for 2 or 3 strait Days. But i stuck at the very end when i tried to find the stuff for the LeChuck vodoo dool. i dont know why but i did quit the game at this point and it took my a while(months?) 'til i replayed it to finaly see the ending credits
I think MI2 was the first MI i realy played, after that i played SoMI. I didnt play SoMI first because of the graphics...it was the VGA floppy version.
Just great to have you back on board! twopointfive questions, i hope noones has asked them, i read thru the majority of the ones you've answered and i dont think anyone has;
1. During the time you were with the LUcasArts guys doing the remastered version SURELY they were talking about the prospects of doing Lechucks Revenge when and if the remastered version did well enough to warrant it? (yes i know they say its a labour of love but im guessing the first one would have to sell a few copies at least)
2. When i've published a book im writing one day and i then write the scripts for the tv show version, will you play a character in it for me (which i'll write especially for you!) for lots of pay, food and fame?
2.5. If you ever come to Australia would you autograph my AMIGA500 please?
this is a question for anybody....
omg can u actually buy these somewhere? or is this a joke?
No and no, it's just that painting shoes is one of the trendy new indie art fads. Those are something that somebody hand-painted for art's sake.
If Monkey Island is like the only game you've really voiced, how do you like buy stuff? Do you have another job or do you live in your car?
I’m not. But only because I did that after EMI and had my soul crushed for ten years. I’d rather pretend each is the last and be shocked and elated when another one pops up.
That’s it! How’d you replicate my scrawl so faithfully?
Sure it would! But like anything else, there’s a budget and you have to be smart about how you use it. Plus, that kind of thing – while it would be an incredible luxury -- shouldn’t be necessary for really good voice actors. VO is already a huge chunk of the cost of producing an adventure game. If you know a handful of great voice actors who can come in and lay down 4-5 characters each that are 95% perfect, it’s tough to justify spending three times as much to get them to 98%. Of course it helps to see some drawings, a little action, get some background... this is all important stuff and we usually get it to some degree. But getting heavily involved in production just isn’t something that’s done. Unless you’re talking about something like Force Unleashed (I think), but that’s a freaky weird exception.
Love it. Unless it’s made with cream, in which case it isn’t carbonara. (Pet peeve.)
I can honestly say that I haven’t found any of the first four Guybrush designs jarring or “wrong” in any way. Or if I did, I quickly forgot about it. And when I talk about the first four games, I don’t mean to imply that I’ll feel differently about either of the current projects. I just like to wait to mess around with the final product for a while before making any judgments. Seems only fair.
Close call between Lolita and The Neverending Story.
(And assuming the trains roughly follow the route laid out by Google Maps driving directions and leave on the same day, they’ll crash at approximately 12:55 AM EST the next morning, near Nittany, Pennsylvania. And if you answered 12:27, you forgot that Duluth is Central time while Hartford is Eastern time, meaning that the Duluth train only gets an 11 hour head start rather than 12. That’s right. I solve for X, baby. Bam.)
I actually haven’t been reading the other threads, but only because I’m buried in tending to mine! And I hadn’t considered such sweet revenge against Jake, but I am now.
Ah, of course. No, Darragh (the voice director on CMI and EMI) explained to me exactly what was going on. That'd be a shocking omission if he didn't. And yes, I imagine it would have been rather confusing.
I’ve actually spent very, very little time working with the other actors. From a budgetary standpoint, it just isn’t practical to put everybody in the same room for something so monstrous as an interactive script. But there were a few opportunities, including some of the cutscenes for EMI and the Pirate Song in CMI.
With the caveat that it’s completely impossible for me to be objective about these things, I loved EMI. I understand and appreciate why some people were disappointed, but I just enjoyed it too damn much to feel the same way.
Nnnnnnnnnnnnnno, I’m pretty sure nobody has.
Ah, there they are. Gosh, plenty of candidates.
Deaths can get pretty wacky sometimes. The following exchange – or something very close to it – actually occurred... and it was much less ridiculous and more practical than you think:
“Okay, now we need a scream.”
“What kind of scream?”
“A death scream.”
“What’s killing me?”
“A sword.”
“A regular sword?”
“Actually, kind of a laser sword.”
“Oh, okay. Slicing or stabbing?”
“Slicing.”
“And where am I being sliced?”
“Across the midsection.”
“Are we talking, like, sliced in half, or just very badly damaged?”
“Just very badly damaged.”
“Okay, so not instantaneous, but a relatively quick death.”
“Yeah, no more than a few seconds.”
“And is this, like, searing pain laser sword, or wounds instantly cauterized actually hurts a lot less than it looks like it does laser sword?”
“I’ll leave that up to you.”
“...okay, I’m ready.”
Then there was the time Darragh asked me to do some random cantina alien sounds for one of the Star Wars games (don’t recall which). He sent me home with a cassette tape full of reference material taken from the movies. When I came back the next morning, I told him that I thought most of them weren’t even produced by living creatures, much less humans, to say nothing of the sound processes involved. So I ended up spending about half an hour laying down a bunch of sounds that were as far from human as possible, but could still plausibly pass for an alien language.
And, of course, there was the shirtless session. My shirt was too loud. Not the color. That was quite subdued, actually. But it was made with a fabric that made too much noise when I moved (the microphones are very sensitive). So I took it off.
There are plenty of others that aren’t springing to mind, but suffice it to say that hocking a loogie on mic barely makes the quarterfinals.
What, a prime opportunity for snark isn’t prize enough?
Well, I can’t really say because I’d have to know what they sound like in real life to know whether they’re recognizable or not. I suspect I’d be able to pick out Billy West, for example, since so many of his characters have such a distinctive tone, but I don’t actually have any idea whether he sounds like that or not.
Tough call. I want to say Grim Fandango, but it’s almost too perfect as it is to revive.
Nice try, buddy. I unzip your file and next thing I know you’re swiping Monkey Island scripts off my laptop!
(Just kidding. But I do make it policy never to open zip files I find online.)
I’d probably ask him to retire so they have to recast the role.
It’s almost certainly Blood for me, too. I just love the feel of it.
Not that I’m aware of. Of course, I was shocked to discover that episode of Chicago Hope on Hulu last week, so there’s probably a lot more than I’m aware of. (Though that was less an interesting clip of my talent and more an interesting clip of my stubble.)
A union exemption :-)
Hell, scarcely an hour goes by that I don't hear them screeching and chattering.
Wait, you meant my kids, right?
LeChuck has to be worth a dozen woodchucks when it comes to woodchuckery, so... 444 pounds?
(Apparently it’s math night in the Private Pirate Forum.)
On the commercial end, Tom Ciappa for being such a cool cat and shockingly talented. David Pasquesi for spending half his time in the booth and half his time in Italy and being shockingly talented. And Demi Moore (yes, Demi Moore), for being one of the very, very few celebrities who actually belong in VO. Seriously. Put Ghost on the screen and I want to claw my eyes out. But I could listen to her VO demo all day.
On the character end, Mel Blanc for being the prototype. Seth MacFarlane for creating and delivering his own vehicle. Tom Kane for being so unassumingly awesome. Tom Kenny for looking like Buddy Holly (he does!). And the Brothers Chaps for doing it their way, somehow running a strictly PG website that’s still hysterical to even the most cynical adults, and for proving that it’s not about the voices – it’s about the characters.
I think the Guybrush as Barry White is the only time I’ve done that, so it’s not exactly a large sample, but I think the former. I could probably get away with the latter while doing Guybrush, but that wouldn’t fly most of the time.
Nah. I always read him as somewhat comical in the first two, so three wasn’t much of a shift for me. And he was almost a minor character in 4, so it’s kind of hard to compare.
I’m tempted to say 2, just because of that slinky zombie pirate shuffle, but Earl Boen is just too awesome, so I’m going to say 3.
Hmmm... well, I always wanted to play D&D when I was a kid, but could never find anybody to play with. So I mostly just rolled characters and read modules. I had my comic book phases, but never got hardcore about it. Ditto Magic: The Gathering. In the days before Guitar Hero, I brought back a Japanese PS2 and a bunch of guitars from Japan for the sole purpose of playing Guitar Freaks. At the time, that was a really obscure, geeky subset of gaming culture, but now all of the cool kids play fake guitar too. These days, I’m a big food geek.
Hells yes.
Can I name a few? Futurama, Simpsons, South Park, King of the Hill, Top Chef, Iron Chef (mostly Japan, but USA’ll do)... sense any themes here? Arrested Development, The Wire, Flight of the Conchords. Veronica Mars hooked me. And whoever decided to cancel Deadwood three seasons into a four season story arc needs to be fed to Wu's pigs.
Let’s just say that the developers making adventure games aren’t charities. Whatever their plans, there’s no number of copies sold – either high or low – that couldn’t change them.
In that order of importance, no less!
Sure! (And Australia’s actually pretty high on my wish list for foreign travel destinations.)
Well, it’s not the only one! I think I have a couple dozen credits to my name. But the gist of your question is right on. I was actually making a meager living on VO in L.A. for a while, but we’re talking pretty meager, and even then I was in one of the upper percentiles. For most people, it’s a side gig. The people who can actually make a decent living at it are incredibly few and far between. Even more so in the celebrity VO era. I help out with the family business (decorative tin packaging – exciting stuff). And I’m married to a sugar mama with a medical degree, so there’s that. And speaking of my sugar mama, she has answers!
Edit: I am so damn psychic, I said that without seeing the mentions of Futurama and Billy West in your last post.
Oh god, I love Arrested Development and Veronica Mars, too. Those shows are so unappreciated and killed-before-their-time. At least AD got a satisfying ending and is now getting a movie.
...Hey, how great would a Telltale episodic VM game be? Actually, I wouldn't mind seeing them take on a TV show license, just because that kind of standalone stories with a strong arc fits the episodic game format perfectly, for obvious reasons. The recent mention of Doctor Who somewhere got me excited.
Thanks for agreeing to answer our inane questions.
I'm not sure if this should be directed in this thread or the Q&A with the team but seeing as I've so far managed to read your Q&A....I figured here.
I noticed on the lucasarts.com video when you're in the recording studio that you were wearing a recent Threadless t-shirt. This would be the perfect timing to suggest to threadless that they run one of the their feature design competitions. Something like 'Threadless loves...Tales of Monkey Island'; stirring up a bit more promotion for its launch and causing those geeky monkey island fans/graphic designers to cream themselves...
Nic
And now let's come to the questions: What do you think of that voice? Would you even try to speak German (and other languages as well), record it and compare it with the localized VO only once just to see how good the other voices fit to your actual voice?
You are serving a large group of your wife's coworkers. In your haste you get distracted by the group and come back to the kitchen to find the roux is about to burn, the meat is almost charcoal, and the mushrooms are waterlogged. The only alternative is Taco Bell's "deal of the day". What do you do? Do you serve the potentially nauseating Salisbury Steak or do you try to pass of the fast food as your own?
Anyways, I was also wondering what games you're playing currently... specifically on the PC platform. If they're multiplayer, what screen name do you use? I'd love to play a game with you and then brag about how I lost/won a game against Dominic Armato.
...Also also, I found what appears to be your FaceBook. I demand you add me. That's not really a question, but do it anyway. I need the nerd cred. Well, I don't need it... :rolleyes:
Ahaha... that's pretty good. Still, it's not quite the same Guybrush that I know and love. Bill is way off, though.
I just want to say that you are the best!!
I also researched that you played in a few Nickelodeon series like Rocket Power and Aaah!!! Real Monster which is pretty cool.
Have you played Maniac Mansion? What do you think of it?
He wants to know, if it's not too much for you to answer his questions too, what do you like most about Guybrush? And how many times have you finished each Monkey Island game?
He thanks you very very much for this oportunity of asking you this and meeting you (virtually speaking). I helped him write this because he doesn't know how to spell words in english, even if he speaks the language better than I do.
Thank you. (Sorry if I'm beginning to bug you, and no, the carbonara doesn't contain cream...anymore.... from now on..well, you understand)
Masaharu Morimoto, Chen Kenichi or Hiroyuki Sakai?
Legend.
Is it a coincidence that your name is an anagram of ADMIRATION.COM??
And if you voiced some FPS, AMMO-INDICATOR would be quite apt.
Why do you have a kazoo on your bathroom for two months?
And a dude with a name sounding (or looking at least...i doubt it actually sounds like it looks) like a pirate noise! "Darragh, Jim lad!"
He sounds exactly like an older version of Fry. The voice was based on his 23-year-old self! And, as a side note, the commentaries on the futurama dvds are well worth watching. That goes for everyone here too
Oh no! It just occured to me i cant boost sales by buying more than two copies of SMI because its download only! (one for PC one for Xbox) I'll need to push it extra hard on my friends!
That they are. Which reminds me, I've just heard that Futurama is coming back - Comedy Central have picked up the show for 26 episodes (hopefully more in the future!) to air sometime in 2010.